1. Field of the Invention
The present invention concerns an electrically conductive composite membrane of polyaniline with metal phthalocyanine and polyaniline with sulfonic acid and/or NAFION.RTM.. Specifically, the present invention is to a process for the electropolymerization and production of an electrically conductive composite membrane of polyaniline with metal phthalocyanine, and polyaniline with organic sulfonic acid and NAFION.RTM., and the product electrochromic polymers of these electropolymerizations.
2. Description of Relevant Art
Organic conducting polymers such as polypyrrole (PPy), polythiophene (PTP), polyaniline (PAn or PAN) and their derivatives are gaining in popularity for potential use in optical, electronic and electrochemical devices. See, for example, F. Garnier et al., Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry (1983), Vol. 148, p. 299; H. Kaezuka, et al., Journal of Applied Physics (1983), Vol. 54, p. 2511; and A. Mohammadi et al., Journal of the Electrochemical Society (1986), Vol. 133, p. 947.
A major disadvantage of these electrically conducting polymers in any configuration is that they have poor mechanical properties. See, for example, O. Niwa, et al., Journal of the Chemical Society (1984), p. 817; S.E. Lindsey, et al., "Synthetic Methods," (1984/1985), Vol. 10, p. 67; F.R.F.Fan, et al., Journal of the Electrochemical Society, Vol. 133, p. 301; and R. M. Penner, et al., Journal of the Electrochemical Society (1986), Vol. 133, p. 310.
Several approaches may be useful to improve the physical and mechanical properties of the conducting polymers. For instance, the polymerization of pyrrole in thick electroactive polymer networks such as poly(vinyl chloride), poly(vinyl alcohol), NAFION.RTM. and NAFION.RTM. impregnated GORE-TEX.RTM. has been reported in the literature.
T. Hirai, et al., Journal of the Electrochemical Society (1988), Vol. 135 (#5), p. 1132-1137 reported that the anodic polymerization of pyrrole, 3-methylthiophene and aniline at NAFION.RTM.-coated electrodes gives electrically conducting polyaniline (NAFION.RTM.) composite films. These composites show an improvement of the polypyrrole electrochromic response and by the efficient utilization of stored charge by the composite film electrodes. All references cited in this application are incorporated herein by reference.
It is therefore desirable to obtain electrically conducting polymers of polyaniline (PAN) with an added dopant and/or on a substrate which have improved electrochromic properties. The present invention accomplishes that objective.